Subdivision

The central storyline? metaphor? here is pretty clear, starting early on, and for that reason I needed either more or less. More surrealism, or more integration of the other characters and symbols. More reveals, or just less precious ones. I don't know, I liked the pacing and the tone, but I'm not sold. It's possible in a week I'll still be thinking about it, and it's possible I'll have forgotten it completely.

This is a weird one. Set in a place called the subdivision, cut off from the city for unknown reasons, a woman arrives at a bed and breakfast sort of place with no idea of who she is, but she plans to find a place to live and a job. There's a puzzle, and an odd smart device and a little boy and a badger-monster-guy and some other weird people. For much of the book, it feels random and unstructured, like an extended dream sequence in an experimental film. And then all the pieces fall into place, sort of.

I dragged myself through this book but ended up delighted, but also not entirely sure what to think of it all. My least favorite kind of book is the ones were outside forces make random changes (not big on books that rely on magic or show more elves or powerful forces) so that the reader never has solid ground underfoot and this felt like that, until the moment when it didn't. I'm looking forward to getting to find out what other people think of this one. show less

This book is a puzzle. I couldn't tell you what it means to convey, but somehow I liked it.

The unnamed narrator (a young woman it seems) has arrived in the subdivision seemingly to start a new life. She takes a room at the guest house run by two older women, Clara and the Judge. However, both women are named Clara and both are retired judges, so our narrator is never sure which woman is Clara and which the Judge.

Besides constantly urging the narrator to work on the puzzle (which is constantly changing), Clara and the Judge give her a hand-drawn map of the subdivision as well as leads on how to find permanent housing and a job. The road to the city is blocked off. On her first day exploring, the narrator purchases an Alexa-like device. show more named Cylvia, which provides advice and assistance and which is constantly mutating. She also comes across the bakemono, a sort of shape-shifting demon who will be a threatening feature through-out. Cylvia helpfully warns her, "You must not fornicate with the bakemono."

The NYT described this as an "enigma packed with miniature mysteries." I don't usually like novels that are dream-like and feature seemingly pointless journeys, but I did quite like this one, and I'm still trying to figure out why.

3 1/2 stars show less

This book has a similar eerie, otherworldly feel as both [book:Census|35068746] and [book:That Time of Year|51243985]. I felt that both of those novels were allegories, thus one I am not so sure--is it an allegory, or is it a novel of an unconscious person/trauma survivor's thoughts and dreams?

I am leaving this at 4 stars for now, but it may go up to 5. I really liked this, but I also feel like I am missing something. I read this for the Tournament of Books, and I am really looking forward to the judgement and discussion there!

SPOILERS BELOW
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Is the unnamed narrator Anna? I assume she was actually in the car accident that she relives during the storm. Was Mr Lorre the truck driver? Is he trying to take her flowers not because show more she is his wife, but because he is in better shape after the accident? Or is he similarly injured and he is worried about her? Who was driving her car--is the bakemono character (and her "killing" him) part of her recovery? Is she mad at that person? Was it her husband? Did he die? Is the boy her son? Did she lose a pregnancy in the accident, represented by Cylvia, who she has to let go?

Or, are these characters all dead? Is The City their waking from comas and returning to real life, or is The Subdivision Purgatory, and The City is heaven?

So many questions!!! show less

What a weird book and not even translated this time! I have my suspicions about what it all means that I won't spoil here. The details have almost a dreamlike, unconscious quality. It's like if you mashup David Lynch projects with Alice in Wonderland. I will say, it looks like my second hand copy here was thrown across a room by the previous reader, if that tells you anything? Didn't hate it, didn't love it.
*Book #124/304 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books competitors

I really like this novel. With its symbolism, mythology, and dream-like surrealism, it feels a little like a cross between Ulysses and the movie Mulholland Drive. This novel has what I love from fiction: lessons that characters learn obliquely and often accidentally, the way all of us in the real world learn lessons, if we manage to learn them at all.

A book that wants to be Murakami, but isn't. Characters lack depth, everything feels very blasé. There are also similarities with the fantastic video game Kentucky Route Zero in its surrealist portrayal of a hollowed-out working class community, but ultimately these, as with everything else in the book, are only pale immitations of much better works.